was black. There is a post below indicating that science dispels 'racial myth'. What the author did not relay was that the American team actually described the mummy as clearly African, with a 'narrow nose', with a striking resemblence to Nilotic Eastern Africans today. As a matter of fact, the American team disagreed with the term 'caucasoid North African'. That label came from Zawi Hawass. Further, the backdrop of the reconstruction were Arabic Egyptians, and not the Fellahin, who resembled the ancients much more than the Arabs who are in Egypt today. Let's also remember that Tut came out of the 18th dynasty, a dynasty with it's roots in Upper Egypt, with clear African features (one need to only consider Tut's grandmother, Tiye, his father Akhenaton, and his mother Kiya). It looks like the Discovery Channel was on point after all!

Tiye's parents, named Yuya and Tuya, were buried in the King's Valley and again they are not black. Their remains can also be viewed on the above site.

I have to say that I find this whole racial nonsense really tiring and boring. Who cares? There were many great black people in ancient egypt. It just seems that occasionally there were some "north african types" too.

I get the impressions the ancient egyptians would have considered this a weird distinction to make. They just thought they were superior to everyone non-egyptian I don't think they cared greatly about color.
They depicted themselves as reddish brown. Somewhere between the "asiatics" (as they called them) and the Nubians.

Modern Egyptians also find the debate rather strange.
As one said to me recently: Egyptians come in different colors and they get darker as you move south.

Does the skin color of an individual change the greatness of the civilization?

I agree with Merytre-Hatshepsut. If Kiya is Mitanni princess, she comes from Mitanni (as I know, there's a place near today's Iraq) but if not, Kiya is an original Egyptian name.

For the Yuya question, he wasn't black, as you can see on these pictures:
Yuya didn't have the original black things like big mouth, long face...

Yuya

And Tut's grandma, Tiye...

Anyway, as M.H. said, Akhenaten, who is supposed to be Tut's father, comes from the Thutmosid dynasty. And Akhenaten was a pharaoh who liked to appear in statues and paintings as he really look like - but there aren't so much paintings where he looks like black, not?

Anyway, it's an interesting question; I hope this topic will be popular!

I read that somebody thinks that Yuya, Tiy's father, was an "asiatic" as ancient Egyptians said. Infact he had some featuring (especially craniofacial ones) that are "inusual" for a local person. Another proof for this is that he was employed in the royal stables, a work usually given to asiatic people...

Garrgh! When will people stop all this ridiculous racial speculation. It's irrelevant, offensive, childish and just plain annoying.

Ah, but what spice to life it adds to throw real evidence in the faces of people who invent their "evidence" or simply lack a fundamental understanding of the ancient Egyptian society. I'm with Merytre-Hatshepsut in that I couldn't care less about the skin color of the ancient Egyptians, nor do I care much about skin color in general. What offends me much more is historical revisionism because of its childish, unscientific or fringe-scientific, and illogical approaches to serve misguided personal agendas. It's a bunch of nonsense.

Kiya, for instance, was most likely either from Mitanni or Akhmim, and to begin with we can't even be sure she was Tut's mom. I'm in the camp that favors her as the mother, but in the end we just don't know for sure yet. In any case it's quite unlikely she was black, and Akhenaten certainly wasn't either. Tut's remains tell us he was clearly North African and of an appearance, I think, somewhat akin to Libyan men. "Guest" is just following a bunch of weak theories and psuedo-science that Afrocentrists favor. To those who study the actual evidence, the truth is there. There's no reason to re-invent the past!

Akhenaton was clearly 'African' with typical Sudanese features judging from wall reliefs. Many European scholars have gone through great pain explaining that these feautues were "exaggertaed" or evidence of a "deformity" (lol) How can you say Kiya wasn't black, when her portraits are clearly African? I agree that the mummy of Thuya shows him to be Semitic (his mummy was considered 'foreign'), but look at the sculpture above of Tiye? Clearly African. IF Thuya was her father, then her mother must have been a blue black Nubian. Why would the Egyptians consistently portray her as black if she wasn't?

The quote from the American team is below:

"Importantly, the "Caucasoid North African" terminology was that of only the French team. In the words of Susan Antón, a member of the American team, "Our group did not, in fact, find Tut to be a 'Caucasoid North African.' We classified him as African based on many of the [skull's facio-cranial] features...." Antón noted that this was done regardless of the fact that the nasal cavity was relatively narrow, because the metrics were within the range of probability for the Nilotic peoples of the region. With regard to any finding of European origins, Antón further commented that, in light of the cumulative evidence, she "determined the statistical association [with Europeans] was very low and, therefore, based on the nonmetric characters, was not likely to be accurate."

Now I'm not one of those who say Egypt was 100% back, as there has always been a distinction between Upper and Lower Egypt, and the population (especially) in the north was quite mixed. However, I won't just sit her and let people who don't know what they are talking about proclaim that Tut was 'caucasian' and nobody takes them for task when this is obviously not the case.

Joined:Mon May 09, 2005 9:22 amPosts:574Location: The palace of Tutness!

All I have to say is, here we go again.

I'll bet $10.00 that this topic is gunna get locked, like the others. Usually this sort of debate is VERY controversial, and lots of people I know get offended. And I seem to notice that whenever this sort of thing pops up, Psus I is there to take out all his rage about it. Frankly, I don't blame him.

I'm not into the racial stuff...I'm more into the cultural aspects and the Amarna goodness!!

.... I won't just sit her and let people who don't know what they are talking about proclaim that Tut was 'caucasian' and nobody takes them for task when this is obviously not the case.

You are the one who is ignorant. Your comments are riddles with mistakes and misinformation. Inform yourself of the true facts before you come on and arrogantly proclaim yourself superior to others.

There are plenty of Amarna period sculptures and statues which do not show these balck features at all, and the how and why of the iconography of this periodis not well understood at all. The canopic jars now known to depict Kiya do not show her as black nor do, from what I have seen of them, any of the sculptures found in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose.

You're typical of this kind of selective reading. You only see the little facts that support what you desperately want to see. You ignore the facts that don't support your claims and if necessary make up some more

You clearly do not know at all what you're talking about.

To state just again: we don't know who the parents of Tut are with any certainty. There are at least 6 to 8 different proposed parents for the young king. If he was black it's not for any of the reasons you gave.

Further more, North African, and caucasian is not the same as European. No one claims Tut is european. Again can't you at least familiarise yourself with the basic fact and definitions before you start accusing others of ignorance?

And no, I'm not going to waste any more words on this. My experience with people like you is that you don't really want to listen.

Joined:Mon May 09, 2005 9:22 amPosts:574Location: The palace of Tutness!

Merytre-Hatshepsut wrote:

You're typical of this kind of selective reading. You only see the little facts that support what you desperately want to see. You ignore the facts that don't support your claims and if necessary make up some more

You clearly do not know at all what you're talking about.

Such a long, strong paragraph, but I applaud you for it!!! I'm just wondering why some people insist upon defending the race of TUT. No other Ancient Egyptian, Pharaoh or peasant, matters in this case. It's ALWAYS the race of JUST TUT?! Why? Why must people pick on HIM?! What did HE do to deserve THIS?! He would be pissed as Hell if ANYONE argued over only his race and ethnicity instead of what he did and what he accomplished in the short time he lived, and what his past was!!! Must the ignorant people pick on the poor boy-king? I take THAT as an offense, and I'm SURE he would, too!!

And to get Akhenaten, too?....Now, you've crossed the line with me, guest. I'm going in the corner to calm down, now. Nobody disrespects them in front of me. NEVER.

The people that make these kind of statements really are incapable, or do not want, to have any facts given to them that in any way disagree with what they believe.
No matter what facts are given to them, no matter any type of evidence that anyone can provide, if it in any way disagrees with the concept of Black Power they will deny that any such comment could possibly be the truth.
This subject has been aired before on KTO, and, thank God, everyone is intelligent enough to ignore such stupid comments.
The best place to air such views is on the EgyptSearch site--the comments expressed there completely agree with those made by guest.
It's been said here before, Iand I agree totally--what difference does it make? Who cares?
Obviously, it did not matter one twit to the ancient Egyptians. Why should it be important to us?

You have not refuted one thing I have said. Not one. All you can do is write off the obvious truth with assertions that I am a crazy "Afrocentrist". Are you blind? Do you want me to post the numerous reliefs of Akhenaton etc.? If they weren't Tut's parents, as you impy, they were still related to him! Just take a look at the sculpture of Tiye above. She was from the same dynasty, wasn't she (lol). I guess her clear African feautues was also 'symbolic' (lol).

And the only reason I started this was because of the post below where someone gleafully paraded the French reconstruction and proclaimed Tut to be a 'caucasian', and nobody took this person to task. But when I challenged the ridiculous assertion, I get attacked? Why the double standard?

By the way, you must be one of those who classify Ethiopians and Somalians as " caucasian". Maybe it's time for you to take off those blinders!

Just thought I would post my favorite picture of Queen Tiye.
Identified through a lock of hair found in Tut's tomb. Plus cranio-morphological comparison to her mother Lady Tuya.
She must have been a really beautiful lady.
Makes you wish you could talk to her doesn't it? She really must have seen a lot in her lifetime. New palace built in Malkata, her son starts a new religion, founds a whole new city. Married to a man called Amenhotep the Great, who seems to have inspired the later pharaohs like Ramses the Great.

Now honestly, I will stop posting under this topic. But I would like you guys to consider how ridiculous it looks when someone makes posts proclaiming King Tut was white, and nobody has a problem with it. But when someone comes here saying that he was black, which he obviously was, everybody has a problem. Think about it. I didn't even want to stir anything up, but I got attacked for no reason for that one post, when the other person didn't get attacked at all.

Why the double standard? I know why, but can you come to grips with your own preconcieved notions? Probably not, but at least I got you guys to think. There is nothing wrong with healthy debate, but some people here want to attack others who don't share there point of view, and simply remain close minded. Yes, you are the close minded one. Your arrogance is ridiculous.

Anyway, I think the message board is great, and can also be used for healthy debate (and not just about race).

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